ABC News releases rules for Sept. 10 debate between Harris and Trump
(WASHINGTON) — With less than a week until the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump hosted by ABC News, the network on Wednesday released the set of rules that will govern the matchup.
The debate, which will be moderated by World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, will mark the first in-person debate between Harris and Trump and will feature 90 minutes of debate time, with two commercial breaks.
The debate will be held in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center and will have no audience in the room.
Microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak and muted when the time belongs to another candidate. Only the moderators will be permitted to ask questions.
A coin flip was held virtually on Tuesday to determine the podium placement and the order of closing statements; former President Trump won the coin toss and chose to select the order of statements. The former president will offer the last closing statement, and Vice President Harris selected the right podium position on screen, i.e., stage left.
There will be no opening statements, and closing statements will be two minutes per candidate.
Each candidate will be allotted two minutes to answer each question with a two-minute rebuttal, and an additional minute for a follow-up, clarification, or response.
Candidates will stand behind podiums for the duration of the debate and no props or pre-written notes will be allowed on stage. Each candidate will be given a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water.
Campaign staff may not interact with candidates during commercial breaks.
The debate will be produced in conjunction with ABC station WPVI-TV and will air live at 9 p.m. ET on the network and on the ABC News Live 24/7 streaming network, Disney+ and Hulu.
ABC News will also air a pre-debate special, “Race for the White House,” at 8 p.m. ET, anchored by chief global affairs correspondent and This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz, chief Washington correspondent and This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce and senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.
As previously announced by ABC News, to formally qualify for the debate, the participants had to meet various qualification requirements, including polling thresholds and appearing on enough state ballots to theoretically be able to get a majority of electoral votes in the presidential election.
(CHICAGO) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was the first Muslim elected to Congress, hinted in an interview with ABC News that he might directly address protestors criticizing the Biden administration on the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza when he speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night.
Ellison joined a panel about Palestinian human rights on Monday at the convention as the party faces continued protests and dissent — particularly from Muslim and Arab American communities — over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The panel was not part of the main night session, but was sanctioned by the DNC.
When asked Wednesday about his message towards those protesting, Ellison told ABC News in a brief interview that he sees the Democratic Party as open to debate to solve pressing issues.
“One difference between us and the Republicans is that if you got a point of view, you can express it. We’re not afraid of a debate and we’re trying to solve the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world,” Ellison said, bringing up both the more than 1,200 Israelis killed during Hamas’ surprise terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the Palestinians killed in Gaza during the war, as well as those displaced and food insecurity in Gaza. The death toll in Gaza surpassed 40,000 last week, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
When ABC News asked if he plans on referencing that in his speech or addressing the protesters directly, he said, “There’s a good chance of it. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Asked if he’s aware of any discussions of having a Palestinian or Palestinian Americans address the DNC, Ellison said, “I do know that it has been discussed. I don’t know where we’ve landed on that. But I mean, like, why not — why not include all American voices? I mean, we all live here. We all love the country. Let’s all, let’s hear from everybody.”
As to what Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz should do to reach those protesting, Ellison said that both have said they support working towards a cease-fire in Gaza and that the Biden administration is actively figuring out the terms of one.
“I don’t know how much disagreement there is. I think we all want to see the violence stop and civilians have safety and security, and to see Gaza restored,” he said. “I think there’s general agreement on that.”
Ellison also praised Walz, the governor of his state, as “a good, decent, genuine human being.”
“If there’s one word that I think captures him, I think it’s ‘relatable.’”
Ellison represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District from 2007 until 2019 and was a co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. He was elected attorney general in 2018, the first African American elected to statewide office in Minnesota.
(HOWELL, Mich.) — Former President Donald Trump continued his Democratic National Convention counterprogramming week in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday, for a speech that was supposed to be dedicated to crime and safety, but one in which he repeatedly criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor while once again reaffirming his support for police.
“We’re here today to talk about how we are going to stop the Kamala crime wave that is going on at levels that nobody has ever seen before. And she is, as you know, the most radical left person ever even thought of for high office, certainly for the office of president. People don’t know the real Kamala, but I do,” said Trump as law enforcement officials stood behind him.
However, once again, an unfocused Trump failed to advocate for certain, specific policy reforms he was supposed to call for during his remarks.
According to speech experts obtained by ABC News before Trump delivered his remarks, the former president was supposed to call for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers, advocate for stop-and-frisk policies, as well as making “it a felony for any medical professional to perform surgery on a minor without parental consent.”
Throughout his remarks, without providing evidence, Trump painted a dangerous picture of what America would look like should the Harris-Walz ticket be elected whereas he would create a “crime-free America,” he argued.
“Mothers will no longer be losing their children because of weak, liberal policies and politicians that have given up on securing a crime free America. We want a crime-free America. We’re going to stop violent crime in the United States. And it’s people like this that can do the job better than anybody. They do the job justly and fairly,” said Trump praising the law enforcement officials nearby.
As Trump ticked through crime statistics, the FBI says that, for the first quarter of 2024, compared to the same period of 2023, violent crime decreased by 15.2 %. Murder decreased by 26.4%, rape decreased by 25.7%, robbery decreased by 17.8%, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5%.
The former president accused Harris of not trying to fight crime in the United States, latching on to previous comments she made about police funding to argue that, as president, she would work to “defund the police.”
“She wants to destroy policemen in general, and they ruin your lives, your jobs, and they ruin everything you’ve lived for, everything you’ve felt that you want to make great,” Trump said talking to the sheriffs. “You want to make our country great. When I’m president of the United States again, we will never even think about or mention the words defund the police.”
In a series of interviews conducted in the midst of widespread demonstrations around the nation following the murder of George Floyd where there was an uptick in demands for police reform, Harris occasionally expressed support for some of the principles underlying the “defund the police” movement and advocated for a “reimagining” of policing nationwide.
Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer previously told ABC News Harris has “supported increased funding to keep our communities safe and hold convicted felons like Trump accountable — which is why America is currently seeing a near 50-year low in violent crime.”
Trump also highlighted Harris’s support of abolishing cash bail, arguing it led to an uptick in crime before drawing a connection between the protestors arrested during the murder of George Floud and then Jan 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a Trump-led mob.
“When the violent mobs of looters and anarchists tried to burn down Minneapolis in 2020, Kamala Harris raised money for bail to bail out the arsonists and the rioters and the killers. People were killed. Many people were killed,” said Trump.
“Compare that to J6, nobody was killed. Nobody was killed. They weren’t fires set. They burned down the city. They were burning down Minneapolis. And she went out. And not only did she work a little bit with them, she worked a lot with them. She worked to get them out and to make them– to set them free,” Trump falsely claimed, as people were killed on Jan 6.
As protests broke out in Minnesota at the time, Harris asked her backers to “chip in” to a bail fund to support anyone arrested after bond on the social networking platform Twitter, which is now known as X, a post that Republican have repeatedly cited in their attacks.
On Tuesday, Trump promised to “make a record investment in hiring, retention, and training of police officers,” going on to accuse Democrats of not looking out for the livelihood of officers.
At one point while praising Michigan law enforcement, Trump said he would love to have them working during the election in “different territories of your state” to keep things “under control” like the officers do in their home area.
“I don’t want to say any particular names of locations, but I can think of a big one in this state. I’d love to have them working there during the election, I can tell you.”
The former president said he wouldn’t specifically name areas but throughout the campaign cycle he has continually criticized voting procedures in heavily-Democratic areas such as Detroit.
Trump’s visit to Howell has drawn criticism from the Harris campaign capitalizing on reports of demonstrations last month in the city during which masked individuals marched through downtown chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump,” according to local newspaper Livingston Daily.
The march took place the same day Trump was campaigning in Grand Rapids, just 100 miles west of Howell, with two demonstrations taking place with at least a dozen individuals gathered waving flags with a swastika, the term “KKK” and other antisemitic messaging, and chanting “Heil Hitler,” Livingston Daily reported.
But Trump isn’t the only presidential candidate to campaign in Howell. Notably, President Joe Biden also visited the town to talk about infrastructure in 2021.
On Wednesday, as Trump was wrapping up his speech, a reporter asked him what his response was to criticism he has garnered for hosting a campaign rally in Howell, to which Trump quipped: Who was here in 2021?”
“Joe Biden,” the reporter responded, earning a laugh from Trump who then walked away.
The Harris campaign criticized Trump for not outright condemning the demonstrators.
“Today, Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who marched in his name,” said Harris-Walz Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika in a statement to ABC News. “Donald Trump can’t bring us together so he tries to drive us apart. The American people will reject his failed leadership and divisive agenda this November.”
Livingston County, where Howell is located, is one of very few counties surrounding the liberal Detroit metropolitan area that has constantly remained Republican in recent elections.
As some of the nearby counties in southeast Michigan gradually turned red over the years, Livingston became more and more solidly Republican, with Trump winning the county with more than 60% of votes both in 2016 and 2020.
Howell, which reports a white population of roughly 96%, well over Michigan’s white population of 73%, has had a “complicated history” with race, the Livingston Daily reported last month.
The local paper detailed the town’s history of various racial tensions stemming from the 1800s up to this year, including infamous local Ku Klux Klan member Robert Miles’ violent rallies and demonstrations in the 1960s and 70s to repeated racial allegations that have surfaced in town in recent years.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris has enough Democratic Party delegate votes in a virtual roll call to earn the party’s nomination when the roll call ends Monday, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday.
“I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of the Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday,” Harrison said during a campaign update video call on Friday.
“You returned your nomination petitions at lightning speed. You made your voices heard. And what you said was clear: We are not going back. We have to send Kamala Harris to the White House,” Harrison said to the delegates in a call plagued by audio issues. “You demonstrated your dedication and your commitment to this process.”
Convention delegates have been virtually voting by email or phone since 9 a.m. ET on Thursday in a virtual roll call set up by the Democratic National Committee. Delegates still have until Monday at 6 p.m. ET to vote in the nomination process, and Harris — who joined the call — highlighted that she would officially accept her nomination then, after the voting period is closed.
“I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” said Harris, who the DNC deemed the presumptive nominee on Tuesday after she emerged from a process, laid out by the party’s Rules Committee, as the only qualified candidate.
“As your future president, I know we are up to this fight, and when we fight, everyone will say, we win,” she later added.
The nomination is a historic one — if she wins the general election in November against former President Donald Trump, she would be the first woman to serve as president. Harris is already the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to be vice president.
Friday’s announcement marks a major milestone of Harris’ rapid ascension to the top of the ticket, which comes just 12 days after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection on July 21 — a remarkable show of unity for a party that just weeks ago stood deeply divided over what to do about the president’s candidacy.
With Biden endorsing Harris to succeed him shortly after he announced that he would step aside, support from Democratic donors and elected officials quickly coalesced around the vice president. In the end, Harris was the only competitive candidate that launched a campaign to succeed Biden and the only candidate that received enough delegate signatures to progress to the virtual roll call.
Harris is the first candidate to become the nominee for either major party without winning a single party primary since Hubert Humphrey in 1968. (That year’s convention precipitated reforms that led to the modern primary process.)
The DNC initially decided in May to hold a virtual roll call because of uncertainty over deadlines to get on the ballot in Ohio. The state legislature eventually rectified the issue, but the DNC has argued that Republican lawmakers in Ohio are acting in bad faith and that the Democratic candidate needs to be nominated earlier than the convention to avoid legal issues. Ohio leaders have denied this allegation.
ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.